


Les Porcelets; or, an Afternoon in Arcis

by oubliance



Category: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel
Genre: Multi, Rural Idyll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 01:17:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oubliance/pseuds/oubliance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the autumn of 1791, when Camille and Lucile go to Arcis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Les Porcelets; or, an Afternoon in Arcis

**Author's Note:**

> A little caprice of a gift-story: different style, and it falls outwith the (gloomy) universe where my usual work takes place.  
> [](http://www.tracemyip.org/)  
> 

Camille steps back: with grace, to be sure, but swiftly.

‘It’s more scared of you than you are of it,’ Danton begins – and then it squeals and he finds that Camille is holding his coat sleeve, which is not altogether unpleasant. He covers the narrow hand with his own, then pries it away from his scrunched broadcloth and unfurls the fingers gently. ‘Pierre Menuel put up this fence,’ he says. ‘Do you think he wanted them running all over the yard?’

‘With your family,’ Camille says in a thin voice, ‘Nothing would surprise me. You weren’t _here_ when he died. Perhaps they got out – ’

‘Even if they did, why should they want to devour Pierre? Or you, for that matter.’

‘Animals are particularly wild around here.’ Camille presses closer, touches one of the scars on Danton’s face with his free hand. The fingertips are there so briefly that Danton finds himself unsure if Camille did touch him, or if by some force of longing he has conjured an image, Camille’s shade: half-leaning against him in the cold sunlight, touching him and needlessly afraid, chilly of finger, black of eye.

‘You can hold one, if you want,’ Danton says. He’s grinning, because Camille in Arcis is a pleasure more consistent than almost any he can call to mind. ‘You must have seen them in Guise,’ he adds, ‘Unless you really were born in the Hôtel de Pologne. Or spawned in one of the Louis-le-Grand outhouses, I suppose.’

Camille takes no offence. ‘I was seven when they sent me away,’ he says. ‘And before that – oh, we played indoors, and I read a lot.’

Danton pulls one long curl until Camille makes a little sound. He hopes that Lucile will have a child, because the idea of Camille at seven is fantastical to him, and the only way to believe in such a being will – he is sure of this – be to watch Camille’s son grow up. He smiles at the tumbling animals, their untutored movements reminding him of his own childhood, and says, ‘Healthy fresh air, that’s what you needed.’

Ignoring this salvo, Camille says, ‘And so I never had your opportunities, Georges. Not when it came to making the acquaintance of livestock.’ He disentangles himself and edges away, as though not quite believing in Danton’s good intentions. What if, he cannot help wondering, there’s a bull round the next corner, or the one after that?

‘They’re friendly,’ Danton says.

‘So is Laclos, on occasion.’

‘They’re friendlier than Laclos. I promise.’

‘It will bite me. Payot bit me the day before we came out here, you know.’

‘Yes, you showed me. I distinctly recall observing to myself that had you not pointed it out, I wouldn’t have noticed.’

‘Lucile was provoking him and his vengeance went awry.’

Camille has retreated, but not far, and Danton feels moved to recapture him. ‘Poor Camille,’ he says, circling him with careful arms, ‘Wrong place at the wrong time, was it?’ He feels Camille nod against his chest. ‘Payot has a villainous spirit,’ he says. ‘None of our animals are like that.’

‘I’d get dirty.’

‘You’re already covered in ink. Anne Madeleine keeps telling me about your shirts as though she thinks I’m interested.’ He holds up Camille’s wrist, from which it must be admitted that the cuff is part-torn. ‘Look at this, scarcely decent.’

‘I wonder if that’s why your mother thought Anne Madeleine should show me round.’

‘But she wouldn’t have taken such pains with you. One shudder, one delicate squeak, and she’d have rushed you back into the house for some restorative coffee. That’s not my way.’

Camille says, ‘Oh, God help me.’

‘Just hold it for a minute. I’ll get one out for you. Really, I think you’ll like it.’

‘All right,’ Camille says, mendaciously and sweetly. It has occurred to him that Georges-Jacques cannot hold onto him and fish up a small pig at the same time.

‘Stay there, then.’ Danton leans over the pen and appraises its inhabitants, looking for a peaceable spirit. He hears Camille flee without discomposure, selects a favourite animal, and makes his way back to the house. By his count, Camille will already be ensconced next to the kitchen fire, tended by Anne Madeleine and recounting his adventures in lurid detail. He will probably have invented a bull, and will be in just the frame of mind to receive Danton’s chirping burden into his lap.

It’s a valuable lesson, Danton thinks. You can’t know France, not really, without a taste of rural life. One piglet more or less in the kitchen will disturb nobody, except Camille himself, and within ten minutes – Danton wagers with himself – the animal in question will be revelling in a newly acquired name. Camille’s good at that sort of thing, but it never hurts to practise. When all this is over ... Danton’s not sure how to think about that, not yet, because it seems that it can’t ever be. And he daren’t think about bringing Camille and Lucile to Arcis for good, because it’s a thought so ridiculous that he’s almost ashamed of it. He scratches the piglet’s head as he carries it towards the house, and listens to the shrieks of Anne Madeleine’s children in the crisp, bright air.

*


End file.
